Thursday, December 09, 2010

1012: Squirm

MST3k, Experiment #1012

SHORT:A Case of Spring Fever. By accidentally bad-mouthing springs, a doughy man runs afoul of Coily the Spring Sprite, a hellish little creature with a single tooth, pointed ears and a voice like a cartoon grandpa. Angered by the man's taking springs for granted, the demonic Coily shows the man a dystopian world where springs no longer exist. Whenever the man attempts to use something that once contained springs, Coily lunges out of the device, shrieking "No springs!" before chuckling demonically and disappearing with an odd whistling noise. At the brink of insanity, our lumpy hero pleads with Coily to return him to the world he once took for granted. After a brief moment of consideration, Coily relents and brings him back to his own universe. After his epiphany, the he becomes a spring zealot, preaching about the marvellous wonders of springs and their importance in everyday life, much to the annoyance of his golf buddies. On the drive home, one of his friends makes the same mistake he once made- wishing to never see another spring again- but he is cut short by our spring-spouting preacher before Coily can strike again.

The Night is Crawling with Killers. Squirm.

At the beginning of the film, we learn from one of the characters that earthworms can be called to the surface with electricity, but somehow it turns them into vicious flesh-eaters. Sure enough, a storm that night causes some power lines to break and touch the ground, drawing millions of man-eating worms out of the earth, and into town where they quickly start munching on the locals.

So, everyone is well aware that this short inspired the host segment in season three(3) about the waffle sprite... In my marathon though, I've counted at least a good five(5) references to this short since season one(1). Both host segments and in-theater riffs. It always seems almost planned that they waited until the second-to-last episode of the entire series to riff this one. One of the best though. A good one to go out on.

I love this episode. I really forgot how funny this episode is, until I watched it again. I knew it was funny, but damn. There are just non-stop, consistant, funny little jokes and gags that keep you laughing. The moment you stop laughing from one joke, another pops up that's even more funny. There really is no down time on this episode.

This may be the best one out of season ten(10). I hope they can finally get this one to an official DVD release. From what I've heard, it's one of the less likely, which is sad. Everyone needs to own a copy of this.